Buddy Jewell Finds Employment in Mexico

February 23, 2011 by C.M. Wilcox

When Nashville Star winner Buddy Jewell attempted a comeback with the controversial anti-immigrant ditty “This Ain’t Mexico” in 2008, he never could have guessed that he’d be working at a taco stand in Santa Rosalia just a few short years later.

“It’s funny the curve balls life throws at you sometimes,” says Jewell, as he waits for his boss Javier to return with more tortillas so that he can take his lunch break. “Pienso que… sorry… I think that it’s for the best. Realistically, at my age, I wasn’t going to have a long run on the charts anyway, and I didn’t really have many other job skills to fall back on. So I’ve been hanging out down here, picking up some español y sipping some margaritas. Life is good, hombre.”

Just then, Javier returns with a sack of fresh tortillas, telling El Gringo Gordo (“an affectionate nickname he gave me,” Jewell explains) to take treinta minutos for lunch and be back to finish off the day or else he’s fired. It seems Jewell has taken some extended lunch breaks lately, getting too caught up in games of fútbol with some friends across town. Among his fútbol friends, Jewell is known as El Cabrón, presumably a reference to Italian-American gangster Al Capone.

“Javier’s just kidding,” says the singer-gone-taco-chef over carnitas and a rerun of popular telenovela Maria la del Barrio at the apartment unit he shares with a Mexican family of eight. “He wouldn’t actually fire me. It used to be that all I knew of Mexican culture was fajitas and Johnny Rodriguez, but I’ve learned a lot more since working with Javier and moving in with the Hernandezes. We just had a quinceañera for Lacey a few months ago.”

Jewell hasn’t left the music world behind completely: If he can save up enough money from his job at the taco stand, he’s hoping to exploit Mexican national pride with a new song called “Eso No Está America.”

Comments

Gosh, Buddy didn’t need to go all the way to Mexico as Mexifornia (California del Norte) is full of similar taco stands! And not only that he could make more money here as a gardener since white boys pushing lawn mowers have become a bit of a status symbol in the Los Angeles area. Also, there are untold hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants crammed into old apartment buildings in town who would love to have a paying border sharing their digs! Oh well…

LOL…wow,,,you guys must be really bored! .Thanks for the mention BTW, the song is about “ILLEGAL” immigrantion…a fact that most ill-informed people like you no doubt intentionally over look.One only has to actually LISTEN to the song to understand the difference. Keep writing about it though…you guys are helping me sell LOTS of records:)

More artists are reading these blogs lately, and I think that’s really neat. We had Ronnie Dunn comment (very graciously, I might add) over at My Kind of Country a week or so ago. Jewell does sound a bit less indignant than Mr. Brock was at this site. Things are sure starting to heat up on the country web. I love it.

What a waste of time! lol I seen the link to this on my FB after winding down from one of my weekly bar gigs in West Nashille. Actually started to get aggravated reading it and didn’t believe a word. I was relieved to see it was FAKE news. :) I do quiet a bit of vocal demo work around Nashville and have ran into some people who hired Buddy to do vocals on old demos and I’m always blown away by the work he does. There are so many average to less than average singer/songwriters in this town that spend years trying to make it and never do, but Buddy was one of the true and rare talents that slipped through the cracks for years unnoticed. Whether or not you see Buddy’s name up in lights he will always have a strong role in country music if even behind the scenes where most common fans don’t see. There is a lot more to this music than the TOP 40.